


Seven Ways the Earth Turns and I Find You

by poisonedapple



Category: Nana
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Multi, Parallel Universes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-10-26
Packaged: 2018-04-23 09:42:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4872043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisonedapple/pseuds/poisonedapple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two twenty-year old girls named Nana get stuck on a train, moving to Tokyo for the first time meet and change each other's lives.</p><p>It feels like fate.</p><p>Osaki Nana and Komatsu Nana were always destined to meet and stay by each other's side but they could have met a thousand different ways.</p><p>Here are seven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. high school debut au

**Author's Note:**

> I had the idea and I spent forever trying to stop myself - the demand for Nana fic isn't high and no one'll care but.
> 
> Well, yeah. I love NANA.
> 
> All of these will contain Nana & Hachi as friends, sometimes romantic as well.
> 
> For this part the pairs are: Nana&Hachi, Hachi/Nobu, Ren/Reira
> 
> Warning for mentions of canon drug abuse, mentions of canon minor character death, and mentions of canon accusations of underage sex work.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They meet in high school.

Komatsu Nana is fifteen when her father's job relocates him to the northern most part of Japan. She stays behind with her mom and sisters to finish middle school, but on April 1st she has her high school debut in the cold town that is her new home. She'd been planning to go to an all-girl's school with the cutest uniform in her small hometown, but now she is stuck in an even smaller town with only two high schools and neither of them have cute uniforms and she could see the puffs of her breath at midday, even in April. She gripes about it all morning to her parents before she leaves for her first day.

Later she will remember knowing that her life was going to change forever the moment she walked into her class and saw Osaki Nana glaring at her and the rest of the class from her desk, but really she hadn't noticed, too caught up in her own irritation.

She doesn't notice this other girl called Nana until their self-introductions and then she notices how beautiful the other girl is – like a model or actress, even with her curt, perfunctory introduction. When she introduces herself, Nana tells the class she's just moved there and she hopes to make friends with everyone and a boy named Nobu offers to show her around town and she accepts with a giggle.

The class decide to call her Little Nana and the other Nana Big Nana, because of their last names. They might as well not have bothered, though, because their whispered scorn whenever they mention Big Nana makes it obvious enough who they mean.

“She's so creepy, never talks to anyone. Thinks she's better than everyone else,” says one of the girls she eats lunch with that first day tell her. The girl had gone to the same middle school as Big Nana. Nana - Little Nana, though, was interested in Big Nana and her sullen, pretty face sitting all by herself. Komatsu Nana might have all of the entitlement of a fifteen year old, but she has always been a kind girl.

(She's always been taken in by pretty faces as well, so there is that too.)

It isn't just Terashima Nobu that comes every morning to Big Nana desk and follow her around, but Little Nana and Nobu comes along because he is following her around like a puppy since he'd given her a tour of the best spots in town (there wasn't much).

So Big Nana rebuffs two cheerful smiles every morning instead of one and while Little Nana does not bring Sex Pistol albums nor talks about guitar with single-minded devotion the way Nobu does in that other universe, she has her devotion to talking to Big Nana's every morning with genuine motives.

“Like a dog,” Big Nana laughs, “Fine you win, Hachiko.”

She squawks at the nickname, but Hachiko learns to embrace it as the two of them and Nobu begin to hang out. They are her best friends in the whole world, she thinks, though she knows that Nobu like-likes her.

(The first time Nobu asks her out she giggles kindly but declines. He isn't her type and she's already got a boyfriend, but he doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.)

When those three's friendship only just begun, the rumors start to spread that Nana is having sex for money. Nana would not have fought it if Hachiko hadn't begged and whined and pleaded and nettled until Nana relented and she isn't expelled and she doesn't drop out.

Nana does receive a suspension when she gets in a fight with three other girls who whisper that Komatsu and her hang around together so much, Hachiko must be doing the same.

When they start their second year of high school, Hachiko is put into a separate classroom from Nana and Nobu. Hachiko pouts and Nana pats her on the head like a dog and starts keeping candy in her jacket pockets to give to her like treats.

Nana's grandmother falls down the stairs and is bedridden for a month before she dies. It was never Nana's fault that Osaki Miyuki died.

Hachiko is with Nana when they stop by Nana's place to change out of their uniforms to meet up with Nobu with karaoke and find Miyuki. Hachiko calls her parents who take care of all of the arrangements while Nana stands in shell-shock, Hachiko's hand in hers as she is lead back to the Komatsu's home.

Nobu does not get a call from Nana a month after the fact, but from Hachiko on the phone to tell him that they won't be coming for karaoke. He comes by the Komatsu's place with his guitar and plays and sings songs for them both until they fall asleep hand in hand.

Nana insists she can take care of herself - get her own apartment and drop out of school to make money, but the Komatsu's insist and take over her guardianship. She walks to school with Hachiko every morning and they meet up with Nobu half-way.

That Christmas of her second year, Nobu invites both Nana and Hachiko to see Brute. Nana buys herself a frilly red dress but when Ren comes on stage, her penetrating gaze is not upon him but on Hachiko and the handsy crowd around them as Hachiko laughs into her shoulder.

Ren doesn't notice her during that concert, though Nobu does introduce them afterwords but again she is more concern with Hachiko and making sure she doesn't drink any of the alcohol.

That summer after, Ren chases her down as asks her to sing for his band, but she has to wait until she graduates high school first after she does join the Blake Stones with Nobu.

That following Christmas, she doesn't play on a snow covered bank with Ren, but trudges through the snow home with Hachiko.

She and Ren never kiss and never fell in love, but they become friends – close friends and confidantes and when Ren leaves for Tokyo, her only feelings are that of missing her friend and the fire of competition and wanting to perform on as big a stage as he is now.

(When, years later, Ren calls her and sobs as he spirals down a drain from drugs and pressure, Nana gets him out. Their relationship is different - supportive and not destructive co-dependence and that makes all of the difference. She does not feel the disappointment that Yasu feels, only knows that her friend needs her. She picks him up in a taxi and takes him home and she helps him through the withdrawals. When Takumi pounds on the door looking for his guitarist, she punches him hard in the face. Her ring cuts his face the way it would have if she'd socked Shoji in the face that one time in that other universe. It leaves a scar and Takumi rages, but doesn't press charges because that'd bring to light Ren's addiction to the media.

Takumi covers the scar with make up for the rest of his life and per Nana's demands, Ren's given the necessary support to keep his sobriety. He stays with Trapnest because despite everything, he still believes in Takumi's dream and Reira's voice.

Nana and Ren stay friends. They understand being abandoned and oversensitive and this time they never get to abandon each other and wallow in guilt.

His ashes are not thrown out to sea on her twenty-first birthday and she never goes to find a place to die in grief.)

Hachiko is with Black Stones from the beginning and they call her their mascot and favorite groupie, but as the band gains local popularity and with Blast's Private Fan Club and Shion and the girl that calls herself Uehara Misato, Hachiko takes on more responsibilities so the band can focus on the music.

(One day, when the band moves to Tokyo, they will consider Hachiko their manager and they won't sign any contract that won't let them keep her.)

When Ren leaves them for Trapnest, Yasu breaks up with Reira and stays behind in their hometown with the rest of the Black Stones.

(Even though it will be Nana that picks Ren up off the floor, it will be Reira that keeps Ren standing. One day, they'll be considered a power couple by the magazines and no one will find scandal in their relationship and they'll only find the two make a pretty picture together and don't they deserve one another?)

Hachiko dreams of a big wedding and wearing both a shiromuku and a western wedding dress and a house with a garden while Nana dreams of a big stage and Hachiko and the band at her side, but she leaves for Tokyo alone on her twentieth birthday because she can't ask them to come with just for her dreams.

She is scared they won't come with and her pride keeps her from the rejection.

She is more afraid of the fact that Hachiko will pack her bags and follow her with a radiant grin without another word. Nana doesn't want to fail her, doesn't want to disappoint her first and best and most important friend.

She doesn't tell Hachiko or Nobu before leaving, just leaves them a letter and tells Hachiko to wait and thanks the Komatsu's for taking care of her, but she does tell Yasu and he comes to see her off. Yasu doesn't tell her not to go or that he'll miss her and his eyes are kind behind his dark sunglasses as he smiles at her as the train takes her away.

Nana watches the snow pile from the window and no one sits beside her during her long ride to Tokyo.

Hachiko doesn't cry over the letter, just waits until the snow melts and the trains are running and packs her stuff and follows.

Yasu texts her Nana's new cellphone number and she smiles before she texts Ren – they've all kept in contact with no hurt feelings or heartbreak to hold them back.

When she gets to Tokyo, Ren is luckily in town to pick her at the station – incognito of course. She leaves her stuff at his place, so Nana won't be able to send her right back home, and then she texts Nana.

**I'm in Shibuya, by Hachikō Exit. I'll be waiting.**

The forty minutes it takes for Nana to get to Shibuya is the longest Hachiko ever has to wait for Nana.

When she sees her, Nana sighs with a smile and ruffles her hair.

“Come on, then.”

But they have to go back to Ren's place to get her stuff before they go home, to Room 707.

Nobu and Yasu follow soon after and later they'll meet a fifteen year old boy and the Black Stones will be complete. Gaia never offers them a contract – there is no Ren and Nana to offer them a scandal, not in that way, but one day a smaller indie label will and Nana will perform on a big stage like she dreams of.

Nobu will ask Hachiko out one last time and this time they've been through so much together and he sees her as so much more than a girl who was sweet and charming and kind, but all that and her faults as well. She'll get her wedding and house with a garden one day, maybe with Nobu.

What matters is that Nana and Hachiko are happy in Room 707. They never buy strawberry glasses, because while Room 707 is as central to their story as they are themselves, the strawberry glasses were only ever a metaphor for sad broken things torn apart, of the girls themselves shattered on the floor.

Nana and Hachiko together are unbreakable, this time around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shiromuku: Traditional Wedding Kimono
> 
> Also, the "O" in Osaki means Big and the "Ko" in Komatsu means little. Anyone who read/watched Lovely Complex probably knows this lol.
> 
> All of the chapters are going to end happy - no one is going to die, no one is going to run away to another country, and no one is going to wait years for someone to come back.
> 
> Usually I like to complete a story before I start posting, but all of these chapters are self-contained so yeah.
> 
> I've got an idea about what the others will be like and I'm hoping I'll get time for all of the characters other than Nana and Hachi to get spotlighted.
> 
> tbh all of this is going to be the basic outline of a bunch of canon divergent stories I've got in my head but I'm not going to let me do this to myself.


	2. pen pal au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They meet through letters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pairings: Nana&Hachi, Shoji&Sachiko (i guess)

Endo Shoji breaks up with Komatsu Nana on December 4th, 2000. The reason is he's met a girl at prep school.

He's in love with her, this other girl. He loves Nana too, but Sachiko is right there.

(As much as this is a story about Osaki Nana and Komatsu Nana meeting in destiny, Shoji always finds his way to Kawamura Sachiko as well. But this isn't their story.)

Nana cries in bed for days, gets fired from the movie rental store for not showing up, and she does not board a train to Tokyo on March 5th.

Osaki Nana rides to Tokyo alone and she lives in Room 707 alone as well. She works extra jobs to pay the rent, but she manages. Room 707 is a place of fate in both their lives, but it'll take a while to come to fruition.

On the other hand, Komatsu Nana grieves over her first real boyfriend but she moves on – eventually. She complains to Junko over the phone and Junko gives her tough love that she doesn't need. Their friendship eventually dissipates over the years, the distance and personal differences too large to overcome.

She attends the Trapnest concert with her younger sister, Nami, and she spends to whole time screaming over Takumi and watching his dark long hair swing in his face, hair that will never rain upon her face as it might have once. Her hands are empty, with no hand to hold.

It is an accident, how it happens really. But Nana stumbles upon an advertisement for Cookie, a contest for beginning mangakas and she enters. Despite her art background, her drawings are childlike and yet her stories are pure yet relatable and somehow she wins and debuts as a professional.

(It is all too easy to overlook her whimsy and kindness and sincerity as vapid and unintelligent, but Komatsu Nana is empathetic and understanding of the human heart, even if a little naive.)

She takes the name Nanako as her pen name and she writes about selfish, sympathetic heroines. She is criticized for her self-centered characters and her art is often jabbed at for being like a gag manga paired with her emotional stories, but her fans praise the purity in her works and empathize with the world she writes. They write her fan letters and tell her that her manga gives them strength. Nanako dedicates herself to her work, finds joy and happiness in it that she never finds in the boys that she dates.

(After Shoji, there are other boys. And more heartbreaks. But she gets up every time and writes the experience into her manga.)

The years pass and in Tokyo, Osaki Nana slowly works toward singing on a big stage. Without anyone to stop her, she dumps Nobu out on his ass when he shows up at her apartment. He goes back home regretfully. Yasu never comes to Tokyo. The Black Stones never make it to Tokyo.

Nana struggles alone.

(She and Ren never get back together – no one is there to take her hand and take her to any concerts.)

She takes every gig she can take and the bands she joins constantly break up and she has to find new ones.

Eventually, she releases a self-released independent album and she gets picked up by a minor label.

Somehow, someway, that album finds its way to Nanako's desk. The genre isn't her usual taste, but the first time she listens to Nana's song she falls in love with that voice the way she did the day Nana stood on their new table and sang to her. Nanako writes a one-shot inspired by that first song she hears and after, she sends the magazine it is published in along with a fan letter to Tokyo, to Nana, the girl with the same name.

Nana reads the letter and tears fill her eyes – she claims her favorite part of singing is the big stage, but her listeners and their support has always been crucial to her development. She can't do it without them. She reads the story and laughs as much as she cries, her heart touched as much s Nanako's was by her song.

She responds with a letter of her own, which isn't unusual, but a regular correspondence begins and eventually they move their letters over to e-mails for faster replies and they become friends without meeting face to face.

They are so different, these two women (for they are women now, in their late twenties when they first start sending letters to one another), but they always have been. Yet they fit together, just the same. 

On their worst of days, it is the anticipation of their next e-mail that gets them through it.

Theirs is a relationship of solidarity and friendship and they weather the storms with each others support and acceptance and inspiration. They share an understanding of creating works – song and story, voice and art – that touch the hearts of girls, young girls and encourage them to keep going, keep trying, to keep standing.

(These young girls that listen to their works are so important. Nana and Nanako were once young girls themselves, selfish and silly and insecure and making mistake after mistake. These girls, constantly devalued are their lifeblood for their crafts are pointless without someone to receive and listen to them.)

Long days at her work desk, Nana is often Nanako's only companion while Nanako is Nana's first girl friend even in this universe. Sometimes Nana will take pictures of Tokyo and send them to Nanako to use as reference photos. Often times, Nanako is the first person to listen to the songs that Nana sings, practicing to refine them. It is give and take, support and camaraderie, a mutual symbiotic relationship.

They are nearing their forties when they confess their attractions to each other. 

Nanako's been in relationships with men and women by this point and Nana has only ever loved Ren until Nanako.

(Nana has not spent the entirety of her life between losing Ren and loving Nanako pining for him. That is just too sad to consider – rest assured, she and Ren have moved on, their memories of each other a dull and pleasant ache. No, it isn't Ren. Nana has just been too committed to her career and too pure of heart for casual relationships or hook ups.)

Under the guise of needing a change – and, hey, anyway it'll be easier to send in her manuscripts anyway, Nanako leaves her family home and moves to Tokyo, into Room 707 with Nana.

Nana laughs, says they are out of their mind for doing this, but that is the first time they meet face to face. They stay together, though, for a long time after that. 

Being together, living together that is, renews their inspirations. Nana's love songs are about a woman whose lips stains hers with lip gloss with a kiss and whose fingers stain her skin with ink with her touch. Nanako next series is about a rebellious, sensitive heroine and Nana her muse and she'll win awards for the work.

Even when Nana starts aging and stops being profitable and her contract is let go, she sings even just to Nanako. And when Nanako's arthritic hands force her to retire, she tells her stories to Nana.

From the window in Room 707, they watch the fireworks every summer together, hand in hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao, i don't even know.


	3. girl band au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They meet in kindergarten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is my favorite (lol)
> 
> Pairings: Nana/Hachi, Reira/Takumi, Yasu/Shion (only in mention), Nana&Ren, Hachi&Takumi
> 
> Warnings: canon mentions of drugs, mentions of abuse, mentions of weight struggles/dieting

There is a universe in which Osaki Misuzu never leaves her four year old daughter with her mother in a small, cold town in the most northern part of the Japanese islands. Instead, she takes her daughter and ends up in a countryside town surrounded by mountains, two hours from Tokyo by bullet train, and she struggles but she keeps Nana (Misuzu never takes the last name Uehara, never lives in Osaka, never runs an okonomiyaki shop, and never has a daughter named Misato, because Misuzu is too busy raising her eldest. She doesn't marry until Nana is sixteen and she changes her name to Asano Misuzu, but that is far ahead.) The story begins when Nana starts kindergarten.

She is assigned to the Strawberry class, amongst one of the youngest students in that room, and the teachers all mumble to themselves that two four year old girls are not going to understand sharing a name and they should switch her to another class.

They don't, though.

Instead every time someone calls for “Nana,” two girls look up. It gets old fast and the two bond over it. They become best friends, inseparable. Everyone begins to call them by last name: Komatsu and Osaki, except their families and the girls themselves.

They go to the same elementary schools and middle schools and when Osaki picks up a guitar in seventh grade, Komatsu picks up a bass but only Osaki has the vocal talents to sing, no matter how much Komatsu tries. Instead, Komatsu puts pen to paper and learns to write music and lyrics.

Then, when Osaki adopts a punk rock aesthetic, Komatsu adopts a punk princess aesthetic and when Osaki wears red lipstick for the first time, Komatsu marvels how red her lips are with it and finds a red in her own shade. She isn't copying Osaki, she insists, Osaki just found all the things she liked before she found them herself.

They smooth red lipstick over their lips and discover the joy in marking all of the things that belong to them with red – their cups, their napkins, each other's cheeks.

Their parents worry they might be co-dependent, but they laugh and roll their eyes and say that things are just more interesting by each others side.

(There are worlds upon worlds where these two girls have a co-dependent relationship, but this is not one of them. There was a world where Osaki's rhythm falls into Ren's, just as a girl they have yet to meet named Reira falls now into another man's rhythm, but this is two young girls and they will grow out of it but not grow apart.)

When Osaki first listens to the Sex Pistols, it is Komatsu that introduces her. The music inspires their songs, but when they do their research they do not find the relationship between Sid Vicious and Nancy romantic, but destructive co-dependent and abusive. They never have relationships like that and they never watch the movie.

Komatsu's mother and elder sister, Nao, are plump, fat (and beautiful, but they are so rarely told this that sometimes Komatsu forgets) and while Nami, her younger sister, is naturally thin, Komatsu is more like her mom and she struggles over diets, to keep thin until Osaki convinces her to eat to her fill, tells her that her worth is not in how small her body is. Komatsu learns to love her body and take care of it, learns that the size of herself is not relevant to her self-worth and that anyone that thinks different is not worth her attention.

When Osaki starts visiting her grandma in that cold small town her mother grew up for summer, Komatsu comes with every time.

That is where they meet Serizawa Reira, an older girl – in high school and dating a boy named Yasu. They become friends in this universe, inspire each other and their destinies intertwine. They keep in touch when they are apart and when they are together, they sing and play music, Reira's voice sweet voice blending perfectly with Osaki's raspy voice with the sincerity of Komatsu's lyrics to meld them together in harmony.

Envious of Komatsu and Osaki's bass and guitar and wanting to keep up, Reira learns to play the keyboard while she sings as well.

When Reira tells them she is half-American and was named for Eric Clapton's song, “Layla,” they make a cover song and practice the syllables of her true name until their tongues learns them and call her Layla everyday after.

In most worlds, Layla is treated like a song bird, locked in a cage, but Osaki and Komatsu release her in this one. They foil Takumi's plans to be only one to write the songs for Layla's voice and she quits Trapnest, joins a band with Komatsu and Osaki they call SEVEN.

Tsuzuki Mai, who never steals the name Uehara Misato (there never was one to begin with,) starts following them around when Komatsu and Osaki are fifteen and Layla is eighteen. Mai is eleven and they roll their eyes but let her hang around them until Mai learns the drums and her skill convinces them that she belongs with the three of them.

They are a ragtag bunch, an unlikely and eclectic group but their music is proof they belong together.

Osaki polishes her punk rock look, pierces her ears with silver and gets a bellybutton piercing that she has to hide beneath her school uniform from both her school and mom. Cuts her hair into a pixie cut and dyes her hair bright red. She waits until graduating high school to get a septum piercing, but only because she doesn't want to be expelled and separated from Komatsu.

Komatsu strays away from punk in high school, though she always pulls on Osaki's leather jackets when it gets too cold, and her wardrobe becomes a careful balance between edgy and classy, fully of soft pinks and pale mint and champagne. She grows her hair long and spends long hours getting it to fall in perfect waves.

Layla dresses like a Femme Fatale, but she puts flowers in here hair and her long dusty rose curls pooling down her back make her look like an Ophelia. She is neither, she is honest and she is not drowning. Layla learns to find her voice outside of song, learns to bite with her words but never loses her pure sweet smile. She finds meaning in herself beyond the songs she sings.

Mai is the youngest and her gothic lolita styles makes her look even younger, but her smile promises secrets that she doesn't tell.

However, SEVEN is part of Osaki and Komatsu's story but it is not the end.

In their hometown, they make friends apart from each other.

Komatsu meets a girl named Junko, who will one day design the cover art to one of SEVEN's albums, in their all-girl's school. She falls in love her art teacher Okamoto and then later the video store clerk Nakamura. He is her first boyfriend, but she quickly tires of him and falls for her baby-faced pizza delivery boy, Yoshida, instead.

(Hachi, in every iteration of herself, always loves love and always falls in love a little too quickly until she learns to catch herself before the falls and breaks.)

She also makes an unlikely friendship with Takumi, after his unsuccessful attempt to flirt with her and she laughs in his face. Because this is Komatsu, not Hachi or Nana, but Komatsu who has grown with Osaki at her side, she has learned to keep barbs on her tongue and to stand up for herself early on.

(Still, she retains her cheerful nature and pure heart – she would not be the same girl without those. This is just that same girl, growing along side Osaki instead; meeting in kindergarten instead of meeting in a snowstorm on a train at twenty.)

But, yes, Komatsu laughs in Takumi's face. Tells him he might fool himself that he doesn't love Layla, but he hasn't fooled her. He denies it, but Komatsu rolls her eyes and over the years, they become friends. He speaks of how his touch would sully Layla and Komatsu listens and tells him how she knows Layla better than him who has been by Layla's side as long as she has been by Osaki's, for Layla is an iron-blooded girl who would never be damaged just by the touch of his hand. She tears his idealizations apart and leaves him to fix them himself, but it is the start of a redeemed Takumi who finds himself a better, healthier path.

Meanwhile, Osaki makes friends with a cheerful boy named Nobu and never denies him friendship. They share musical tastes and he plays guitar like her, and while his personality is so like Komatsu's, being in his company is not quite the same. 

He falls in love a thousand times over, with broken, sad girls and with girls that are just a little sweet to him. 

(Nobu never has a crush on her for she is never a sad girl but she is never sweet either.)

She makes friends with Yasu too and because Layla doesn't leaves for Tokyo for Trapnest, she and Yasu don't break up quite yet and Yasu never falls in love with Osaki. She meets Ren too, but never falls in love with him and she never joins Blake Stones and never has a lotus tattooed on her arm.

(One day, she and Komatsu will both get matching 7 tattoos on the inside of their wrists, but not quite yet.)

Back in her own home, she makes an unlikely friendship in a boy named Shoji and his friend Kyosuke from a co-ed school. They consider themselves players and have a different girlfriend every other month. One day, Shoji will grow his hair longer and become the kind of guy that could be called “dependable” but that is a long way off and Osaki laughs her ass off at his dumbass while she and Kyosuke take their first drag of a cigarette and cough and sputter but try until the smoke fills their lungs and they exhale.

Osaki is never accused of having sex for money and she is never expelled.

When Osaki's grandmother dies, she does not blame herself.

Instead, she grows up loved by both her mother and Komatsu and friends. She is sensitive and prone to anxiety attacks, always in every world, but the validation early on saves her life and she never runs off to die by the sea and never strays too far from Komatsu's side.

When she is sixteen, Misuzu gets married to a man named Asano Satoshi. He's younger – much younger than her mother and Osaki cannot imagine why such a young man would want an older woman with a daughter, but she knows her mother is hard-working and beautiful and kind and deserves as much love and dedication as her mother has given her.

It is unfortunate when at seventeen, Komatsu whispers in her ear that Osaki's step-father has been flirting with her, propositioning her. She tells her mother, who weeps. Her mom is pregnant and she'll have a younger sibling but her mom will have to face being a single mother once more.

Osaki attacks Asano the next time she sees him, tries to claw his eyes out with her long long nails and draws blood. He doesn't press charges and meekly sends child support after Ayumi is born but he never meets his daughter.

Osaki gets a part-time job to help her mom with the money, learns to build things with her hands in construction.

Komatsu doesn't wear red lipstick anymore, instead she wears pale lip glosses but she hasn't stopped marking the things that are hers with stains from her mouth. She is eighteen and Osaki is seventeen when she smears her mouth against Osaki's and stains her lips until Osaki smears her revlon lips back against hers for the first time (but not even close to the last).

When they graduate high school, Misuzu gives Osaki her money back – she'd saved it all in a separate account. Tells her that a mother cannot take money from her child and besides, at least this time the father is paying child support and she doesn't have to work as hard. Her mother doesn't need it. She's even dating again, a chef named Kawasaki.

Osaki and Komatsu move to be by Mai and Layla and play small gigs and keep part-time jobs, all waiting for Mai to graduate. They share a small one bedroom apartment and work hard to continue adding to the savings that Osaki started and the 300,000 yen that Komatsu's mother deposits for her without a word for her daughter.

They get matching tattoos on the inside of their wrists - “7.” It is their name, each other's name, their band. Komatsu squeals when the needle burns like wasp stings and her skin bleeds but Osaki holds her other hand.

(In this world, Komatsu never speaks of a Demon Lord and 7 is their lucky number.)

Osaki doesn't stop with just their matching tattoo, however, and slowly builds herself sleeves. She also gets her septum piercing. Komatsu strokes the tattoos after they heal, and in this world Osaki does not find meaning in the pain – just an accepted fact that tattoos cause pain.

Osaki's songs are about getting back up after being knocked down and Layla's songs are about trust, both broken and promises kept, Komatsu writes them both love songs, pure and ugly and honest, Mai's drums anchor them in the moment, and together they make music about the power of a woman's friendship. 

Sometimes Takumi donates his talents to make songs for Layla's voice, but Layla is no Lady of Shalott or Rapunzel locked in a tower, not his Persephone who swallowed pomegranate seeds in return for his kingdom, for she is no girl in a story and she does not belong to Takumi. She is not his songbird to possess and keep away from unclean hands, but he has learned that she never was.

Their music inspires girls of all ages and their fans are all so different from each other and them, but they are all lost and find themselves strength in SEVEN's songs.

Their plan was to stay in that small, northern town until Mai graduated high school but Mai is sixteen when she screams she can't take it any more. Someone, please take her away. Layla, the oldest and most naive amongst their four, is the one that insists they leave for Tokyo for Mai's sake and they do, even though Yasu breaks up with her when she leaves for Tokyo.

They leave the day after Osaki's twentieth birthday and the day after they find a two-bedroom apartment right by Tama River. Apartment 707, a room as principle in their fates as each other. Osaki and Komatsu share one room and Mai, too young to live on her own just yet, takes the other bedroom – the one closest to the bathroom.

Osaki builds them a table, to fit at their window. The three of them keep a rota for cooking until they get too tired of Osaki's too salty miso soup and Mai's constant burned black eggs and Komatsu takes over making most meals unless they order take-out. In return, Osaki and Mai wash the dishes and take out the garbage and burnables without whining.

(One day, Mai will move out and get her own place. The other bedroom will become their guest room – until years later, after they put matching rings on their fingers, they decide to have a baby. Osaki is fine with this, wants to be a mother, a good mother – just like her own was for her. Misuzu is not always a good mother to Nana, but this time she was and Osaki is not afraid when the time comes for Ueno to be born.)

Takumi follows Layla to Tokyo because even while he'll never make a career of Layla's voice, he finds meaning in being by her side. They eventually share an apartment and end up together and his touch never damages Layla's sweet smile.

SEVEN never makes it big. They never are followed by the paparazzi, never black mailed by them, their sensitive souls are never broken by the pressure. No one is ever driven to drugs. Ren and Yasu remain in their hometown for now, because Trapnest never got to take Ren away to Tokyo. Ren does leave eventually, but he is surrounded by people who love and support him and he is never pushed over the edge. Yasu becomes a lawyer – a good one and marries a girl named Shion.

SEVEN never makes it nationally popular, but they are loved by the locals – especially the girls, especially in Nichō. 

Their first and third albums, Junko – who Komatsu has kept in touch with, makes the cover art. Junko met Kyosuke in art school and they live together. Osaki laughs at this small, small world and even more at seeing both her old friend Kyosuke, and Shoji too, so in love after spending high school breaking hearts. Shoji's got a girl named Sachiko that he met in class and he is going to marry her he swears.

Osaki and Komatsu visit their hometown for every holiday and marvel over Ayumi's growth. Osaki is a proud older sister and Misuzu scolds her eldest daughter halfheartedly when Osaki gives her sister an absurdly large otoshidama for every New Year.

(One day Ayumi will be scolded by Komatsu for giving her nephew an absurdly large otoshidama while Osaki stands sheepishly to the side, so it works out.)

Osaki's twenty-first birthday is spent in bed with Komatsu and a homemade birthday cake and no one dies and no own mourns while they share frosting-sweetened kisses and whisper in reverence each other's name in between.

“Nana.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite popular belief, Persephone purposely ate the pomegranate seeds after Hades promised her equal rule.
> 
> Nichō or Shinjuku Ni-chōme, located in Tokyo, has the world's highest concentration of gay bars.
> 
> Otoshidama: money in an envelope given to children on New Year's
> 
> Initially Misuzu was going to marry Kawasaki right off the bat (Kawasaki is the chef Hachi had a brief crush on in her prologue chapter), but the idea of Asano making an appearance made me laugh.
> 
> This was the first one I wrote tbh. It was really fun to write, even if it is a bit cracky, haha.


	4. sisterhood au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They meet as roommates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pairings: Nana&Hachi, Hachi&Shin, Hachi/Naoki, Nana/Yasu or Ren depending on interpretation, Shoji/Sachiko, Shoji/Hachi, future potential Shin/Reira, and Miwako/Arashi (I guess...)
> 
> Warnings for canon mentions of underage sex work.
> 
> Somehow Paradise Kiss character wandered in wtf.
> 
> Edited as of 2/3/16.

This time, the change isn't significant. Komatsu Nana will not remember her decision to ignore her cellphone's signaling a text message in favor being an Independent Working Adult.

(She doesn't actually take the job seriously; it's only a video rental store and she doesn't plan on staying there forever – but she is doing her best. For the money, if nothing else.)

So she does not read Shoji's text titled  _The Sakura Blooms_  with a peace sign until her shift is almost over. She runs out on Nakamura after quitting her job and squeals her whole way home, her heavy heels sinking into deep snow. She packs her bags and leaves a letter of goodbye for her family. Hachi gets back home before they ever read it. The train – the train carrying Osaki Nana – has already left with out her. The ticket seller tells her there won't be another train to Tokyo until tomorrow and anyway, the trains are slow going because of the snow.  The snow she'd barely even noticed before nips her nose. Hachi whines to herself as she trudges all the way home, her energy from her prior excitement lost in the moment. It doesn't feel like spring so much anymore.

She texts Shoji the bad news, but he tells her he'd worry about her on the night train anyway with all the snow. He tells her to stay safe and he can't wait to see her tomorrow. He's so sweet.

On the train she missed, Osaki Nana goes to Tokyo alone and unbothered by anyone.  She spends most of the ride napping and watched the snow fall, ear buds playing in her ears. She'll find Apartment 707 and sign for it, but she'll sign for it alone. Yasu comes to help her take care of things, but she has no roommate for him to greet. When Nobu comes to drop off her things, she doesn't allow him to spend the night.  She doesn't listen to the song he wrote for her - not yet.

She'll have to get a couple extra jobs to manage the rent on her own, but Nana is dedicated. Even when her body aches she does it without complaint, unwavering in her ambition. One of her jobs is waitressing at a restaurant named, embarrassingly, Restaurant. It sucks to take out her piercings for the job, but the pay is decent.

(Endo Shoji is not asked to train Kawamura Sachiko. Sachiko does not get the job there. Instead, his boss hires Osaki Nana and hands her off to Shoji to train.  Shoji's heart stops at her name as he looks at Nana's unimpressed face and gasps out, “Demon lord!” Shoji avoids her after that – he doesn't need another Nana in his life, especially one so waspish.)

So Komatsu Nana does not make it to Tokyo until March the 6th and on March the 8th, when she starts apartment hunting, Apartment 707 is already unlisted.  Despite her realtor's best efforts, nothing else fits her price range and needs.

She does, however, find work at a cute clothing boutique called Happy Berry. The job is a dream come true, but it takes a lot of discipline to not waste her paycheck at work. She even works with the designer's sister, Kouda Miwako. Hachi thinks she is cute as button even though Miwako's boyfriend is scary as hell.

(She has a hard time deciding if Ren from Trapnest or Arashi is scarier. She doesn't know Ren in person of course, but she's always thought he was kind of scary from his pictures. At the end of the day though, it is Arashi that is glaring down his nose at her every time he comes to pick up Miwako.)

One day, Hachi will get to manage her own branch at Happy Berry. It isn't a glamorous job, managing a store, but it is in fashion and she learns to enjoy the work.

Hachi gives finding an apartment for herself an earnest effort, but she finds nothing. Shoji sighs and decides they should just get a bigger apartment together. She protests, but he points out that she wants to be mature and responsible about this and its only a practical move for them.  It'll be cheaper for them both too.

Komatsu Natsuko leaves a 300,000 yen deposit into her daughter's account, in a loving gesture and tells her it had been meant for her wedding. Hachi and Shoji blush and stutter until Shoji promises to match Natsuko's deposit. Then they'll both save even more, until they get married and have the wedding she's been dreaming of.

Junko and Kyosuke tease him for the half-assed proposal, but Hachi is ecstatic.

Because the two Nanas didn't meet, Hachi does not put up posters in search of a bassist for the Black Stones. Yet Okazaki Shin finds himself introducing himself to Hachi while at Jackson's all the same. Except, this time Shin has interests in taking her for a client.

Of course she refuses and just as she did once, Hachi is the first person to become concerned with his well-being. She might not understand parents that don't care for their children, but she does know a fifteen year old boy should not be sleeping with women twice his age for cash and a bed for the night. Its slow going, their friendship, but eventually Hachi takes him under her wing and brings him to her and Shoji's new apartment.

Eyes popping out of his head the first time she brings him home, Shoji scolds, “Nana! You can't just bring home like stray! He's a boy, not a cat.” Her boyfriend tells her, exasperated, “Just tell him to go home, to his parents. They're probably worried sick.”

But Shin refuses to go home and Hachi refuses to let him continue as he has and Shoji relents. Shoji draws the line at their strange game of house with them though. He does, however, convince his boss to hire Shin as a dishwasher at his job because Hachi insists upon him working a proper job.

(Shin doesn't go back to see Ryoko any more and eventually she stops trying to call him.)

When Hachi gets her Trapnest tickets in the mail, she does not have a dream of Ren delivering them to her. She begs Shoji to go with her, but he refuses, as does Junko. In the end she doesn't have her roommate in Room 707 to go with and she goes to the concert with Shin. Her family is highly suspicious about her bringing home a young boy, but Shin's a charmer. Natsuko spoils him and Nana's sisters dote on him. In the future, Natsuko will think of Shin as her only son and Shin will teasingly call her mama.

Shin and Hachi watch the concert from the front row. Shin's eyes remain on Ren, but Ren doesn't look back at them. Ren doesn't mess up during the concert. He doesn't call Yasu after and doesn't reunite with Osaki Nana, his Nana. After wards, he'll just think of that concert as any other he's played for. Eventually the sting of guilt he feels for how things ended with Nana won't be so sore. He'll never get into harder drugs. Trapnest's fame dwindles as the years pass and they all go their separate ways. Takumi will manage Reira's solo career and Ren will get by. The fame never was important to him, only the vision.

After the concert, Nana and Shin return to Tokyo. It'll only be a passing comment that Shin makes about seeing Ren on stage, but it catches Osaki Nana's interest. The two get to talking. Nana's got a guitarist she jams with for now and Shin joins them. Her guitarist has his own band, but he doesn't mind playing with Nana in his time off. They aren't the Black Stones, not yet, but that'll come.

(It's always Hachi that gets the ball rolling and Black Stones will never exist in Tokyo without her.)

After meeting the other Nana, Shin takes to calling Hachi 'Nee-chan. She takes it in stride, playing right in. Shoji doesn't feel comfortable with it, but he keeps his silence. Hachi works hard at her job and does her best to be an attentive girlfriend.

It just isn't enough.

Shoji does meet Sachiko, in one of his classes. This time he doesn't cheat, but he does fall in love with her and she falls in love with him. He tries to stay dedicated to girl he has unoffically promised to marry. Shoji can't ignore his feelings for Sachiko for long. When Shoji breaks up with Hachi, he offers to let her keep the apartment. He already has plans to move in with Sachiko, but there is no way she and Shin can afford to pay for the apartment on the long term. She and Shin move out and stay a couple days with Junko who complains a bit but lets them stay. Shin mentions the situation to Osaki Nana and things work out and they move into Room 707. Shin and Hachi have a place to stay and Nana doesn't have to work so many jobs. It works out well for everyone, though deciding who rooms with who is an issue for a while.

From their first meeting, Nana takes to calling Hachi Nee-chan to Hachi's chagrin. This time, their love is sisterly and Shin is their younger, spoiled brother.

On July 7th, Nobu drags Yasu down to Tokyo for another shot at Nana letting him stay and dedicate his life to making music for her voice.

(Yasu comes, if only because Ren sends him tickets – three, one for Yasu, one for Nobu, and the last an unspoken plea for Nana. It is to Trapnest's last concert on their tour and he wants to give Nana another chance at meeting Ren again.)

The Nana, Hachi, and Shin spend their Tanabata in Room 707, writing Tanzaku. The guitarist Nana and Shin play with ends up being Arashi. He and Miwako (resentfully on his part) spend their Tanabata with them. Hachi is star-struck as they casually mention all their famous friends and family. She hints around for autographs while Nana snorts into her beer.

When Nobu knocks on the door, it is Hachi who answers it. At first Nobu apologizes, thinking he has the wrong apartment. Then Nobu recognizes her voice, when Nana swears loudly at something Arashi says. Just as Hachi is closing the door and he barges in exclaiming her name.

Nana tries to push Nobu out the door and snaps at him to go home, until she notices Yasu. She lets them both in without a fight.

It is Hachi that encourages Nana to listen to music Nobu wrote. Nana tries to tell Nobu to go back home and anyway she's got a better guitarist. Arashi snarls and tells her she is a fool if she doesn't take this chance, after hearing Nobu's song. He isn't part of her band anyway. He and Miwako leave after that. He already knows that Nana and Shin wouldn't be needing him to play guitar with them anymore.

They move their party to a cheap studio that Yasu, ever the adult, pays for. The Black Stones play together for the first time, Hachi their first audience of one.

(Yasu doesn't move to Tokyo right then, but he does soon after and Hachi makes Sukiyaki that night.)

The next day, Nana refuses the Trapnest ticket Yasu offers and loyal Nobu declines as well. This time, Yasu and Shin go to the concert with Hachi. They get to go backstage and meet the band and Yasu stays this time.

When Shin and Reira meet, he doesn't give her his card – he doesn't have them anymore. Instead Hachi steps forward when Reira asks if he was to play with Onee-san. She introduces herself as his actual big sister.

(You aren't actually my big sister, Shin thinks, but the words make him happy. Being with the Nanas and the Komatsu's is like family that he has never had.)

Shin and Reira don't have a relationship – at least not then. For all the things Takumi thinks and does wrong, at least he was right that Shin is too young for Reira. Maybe one day, they'll both be ready and mature enough for a relationship but they are far from it now. Shin is only fifteen, after all, and children grow up and change.

For the most part, the band congregates around Yasu, excited to see him. Eventually, Naoki is elbowed out and he spends the rest of the night flirting with Hachi. The two are similar, in many ways – at least their enthusiasm and cheerful, easy disposition. Later, Naoki will contact her and they'll hit it off and date proper. Hachi will still cheer for Takumi on stage, but only to tease her boyfriend. Their relationship develops with honesty and she isn't star struck this time - she'd never really paid him much attention until she'd met him. Nobu loses his chance with her, but he hasn't had the time to fall for her quite yet so it doesn't sting so much.

Takumi is sweet and charming to her, but nothing more that night. Nobu is not there to grab him by the collar. Shin does not splash a drink in Takumi's face. The night goes long and it is a pleasant party.

Shin and Nana don't know about the other Nana's relationship with Ren quite yet, but Shin'll get Nobu drunk soon enough and find out. When he tells Hachi, she isn't fresh out of her own break up but moving on. And she'll council Nana to move on as well, like a big sister giving advice to her younger sister. 

And one day, Nana will move on. Maybe to Yasu, maybe to someone else entirely. Maybe she doesn't move on to another man or even another woman. Perhaps moving on for Nana will be a state of mind, where Ren is not a constant, aching need. And she'll know family, she'll know what it is like to have unconditional support from her sister, from her brother. She'll know how much more she can do with their support for her ambition. Maybe she'll remember how Ren had wanted family and she'll understand now. Maybe she'll call Ren up one day and she can be family enough for him. Because even while she doesn't want kids and that'll never change, just maybe she'll have room in her family - a sister, a brother - for Ren as well. And maybe Nana and Trapnest will be all the family Ren needs.

Maybe.

Just as Natsuko accepted Shin as her own, she'll accept herself another daughter.

Gaia does eventually approach the Black Stones, but their debut takes much longer in this universe. They make their debut the proper way; it is slow but it is steady and it is earned, not jump-started by media scandal.

When the media pressure weighs upon Nana, she has Nana-nee-chan to hold her together and get her through the panic attacks. Hachi might be in a relationship with Naoki, but Nana doesn't feel threatened. By this point, they'll have been together long enough that she trusts they won't be stolen away. Nana will trust that the family ties she has with Shin and Hachi will last.

They aren't obsessed with each other and this time they don't idolize each other. They are sisters - bonded by their ages and names and their younger adopted brother. 

Blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. This time the girls have promises as well as the confidence to believe that they are family through thick and through thin.


End file.
